Elon Musk delays Twitter push verification to November 29th after impersonator chaos | technology

Elon Musk tries again. The chaos created by an avalanche of scammers put Twitter’s $7.99 paid subscription launch on hold, which included the blue check mark, which the social network traditionally uses to authenticate users’ identity. After the initial launch rush, I’ve now pushed the restart date back to November 29th. Musk, who defines himself as the “absolute freedom of speech,” silences domestic criticism by laying off workers.

The billionaire entered Twitter like an elephant in a china shop. He laid off half the staff, caused advertising revenues to fall and financial costs to skyrocket, causing chaos in his decisions and haste, exacerbating the problems. He wanted to launch the subscription service that provided the blue check mark as quickly as possible. It did so despite warnings about the risks of identity theft involved which generated an avalanche of scammers due to the lack of controls.

Users impersonated not only politicians and celebrities, but also companies, earning the seal that was always used online to certify the authenticity of an account. There was even “verified” the existence of Jesus Christ. The businessman, born in Pretoria (South Africa), was in a hurry to launch the service to compensate for the flight of advertisers interested in the future of the network, who did not want their ads to be surrounded by hate messages, impersonation or misinformation in general. For now, not only is Musk making an alternative income, but the chaos he unleashed is scaring away more advertisers.

Not wanting to make another wrong move, Musk has delayed the return of the subscription service called Twitter Blue: “The Blue Verified relaunch has been delayed until November 29th to ensure its robustness.” He tweeted this Tuesday. also, have announced it “In a few months,” those who had the blue tick in the previous system would lose it if they did not pay.

There aren’t many details, but apparently the blue checkmark won’t confirm the person’s identity anymore. Twitter will try to prevent impersonation, but that doesn’t mean those with the tag are who they say they are. “With the new version, changing the verified name will result in the loss of the check mark until Twitter confirms that the name complies with the Terms of Service,” Musk said.

Twitter launched its blue-branded subscription service on November 5. After that, he suspended it to prevent those whose falsehood was verified from interfering in the legislative elections on the eighth of this month, and re-launched it on the ninth of this month and stopped it again on the eleventh of this month, and the third attempt on November 29 was the third attempt.

In parallel, Twitter drew a distinction between blue (paid) and gray (official) flags. In the beginning, Esther Crawford, Twitter Product ExecutiveHe said the gray flag was for “government accounts, corporations, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and certain public figures,” but in less than 24 hours Musk decided to exclude media and personalities. There is a risk that this gray label will largely replace the paper that was once blue and that the latter will end up, above all, determining who pays $7.99 a month.

critical cleansing

Musk calls himself the “absolute freedom of speech.” This ad generated racist, homophobic, sexist, and hateful messages on Twitter as soon as it took over, without the need for changes to the content moderation policy. But Musk is not as forgiving of misinformation and lies as criticism. The businessman has fired several employees who have criticized him or some of his actions both on the social network and internally, on Slack, the messaging network where employees communicate.

Learning his description of how the Twitter app works was incorrect, an employee who referred him online learned he fired him through a tweet from the businessman that he later deleted. Musk responded by mocking a tweet about a piece of news that echoed the firing of critical employees: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. His immense talent would no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”

This new round of layoffs comes after the chaotic cut in half of the workforce agreed to in the week following the company’s takeover. Twitter fired some of the employees it needed, then asked them back.

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